


Fire And Blood

by greygerbil



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 21:32:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13690227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: When Genji and Zenyatta join Overwatch, Genji sees a new side of his lover.





	Fire And Blood

**Author's Note:**

> For Genyatta Week 2018, Prompt: Love on the Battlefield.

Genji had always known that Zenyatta was a fighter. His instincts never failed him in that regard, instilled by growing up in the Yakuza and honed in the Blackwatch unit as they were. No, at first glance, Zenyatta did not look like he could hold his own on a battlefield, but someone who remained this calm around the man Genji used to be – violent and aimlessly furious, like a wild animal with a shard embedded in its flesh – would either have to be more dangerous than he appeared or very stupid. That Zenyatta did not fall in the second category was even easier to tell, so Genji had known not to underestimate him.

He was proven right in his expectations when they started sparring on the snowy plains by the monastery. Zenyatta knew how to defend himself. He lost most fights against Genji in the end, but he was a worthwhile opponent and every once in a while he got the better of Genji, too. His mind was fast even if his body was sluggish, not built for the frenetic pace of hand-to-hand combat. As they learned the flow and patterns of each other’s attacks, Zenyatta soon understood to keep as much distance between them as he could and Genji, who was most deadly at short range with the sword, followed like a predator step for step.

The chase was exhilarating and perhaps Zenyatta’s willingness to engage him there gave Genji the shot of courage he needed to push at the boundaries of their relationship even beyond the fight, though he thought he deserved none of it and his pursuits ran on nothing but blind perseverance and faint hope. Zenyatta fitted him well once more, but in this case it meant staying still and never fighting back until Genji realised that Zenyatta had long been captured by him even before he’d gone on the prowl.

In short, Genji was aware that kindness was Zenyatta’s preferred and strongest mode with which to engage those he met, but he was never blind to the fact that Zenyatta had different ways to face the world, too. On their shared journeys, he’d seen Zenyatta take on people who tried to hurt others or the two of them. He’d seen the scratches and gouges in his chassis multiply.

Those had been thugs, though, or angry and frightened men and women and never more than a handful of people. Those were not the kind of fights Genji used to be in. It came as no surprise to himself, then, that when he introduced Zenyatta to the remnants of Overwatch, it felt viscerally wrong even though he believed in their new mission. Zenyatta would fight alongside him facing paramilitary groups, extremists, terrorists. He would be a soldier and Genji was afraid.

“I know what I agreed to,” Zenyatta told him whenever Genji tried to warn him.

Genji knew that Zenyatta was right. It didn’t ease the guilt and fear.

-

The way Genji related to the fight had always seemed different to Zenyatta than his own approach. To him, fighting had been a matter of necessity, something he had rationalised he should know to do rather than an activity he felt drawn to. Listening to Genji’s tales, however, Zenyatta silently noted that from all the many things Genji could have learned from his family, he seemed to have only wanted to be taught the art of the shinobi and the way to control the dragon that lived within him. Even from a young age, he’d wanted to push himself and excel in the way of the warrior.

Yet he was not murderous if he did not need to be. The playful way in which he fought Zenyatta, like a cat batting at a mouse, had taught Zenyatta not terror, but the thrill of a fight. When all his sensors were running at their highest capability and the world broke down into a hundred new calculations per second and he wanted to be the one to make Genji give up and yet was not angry when Genji beat him fairly, he fancied that he saw glimpses of what Genji loved about battles.

Their sparring was more akin to a game, though, and Zenyatta had never thought that he could come to enjoy a real fight the way Genji did. He’d promised to support Overwatch for the old reason: because it felt necessary.

What he found, however, was that he was good at it and that he _liked_ it.

It was not that he enjoyed causing pain or even that he thought himself an arbiter of justice. He certainly did not love taking life and avoided it if it was in any way possible. There was, however, an almost electric tension during a fight as he juggled his own position on the battlefield, his attacks and defences, his feints and dodges. He soon realised that with his spheres of discord and harmony he could strategize, lead the battle deliberately. There was a rhythm to it that he could not only move to but affect with his actions.

He also noted with excitement that the time he had spent training with Genji showed here, too, and not simply in heightened reflex protocols and stacks of tactical analysis stored in his memory. They were in tune, like two streams merging. Zenyatta had respected and admired his abilities before, now they attracted him as Genji flung himself across the battlefield to follow the purple streak of Zenyatta’s orb of discord and seek out those weakened and disoriented while Zenyatta’s golden sphere kept him safe. It was a wordless choreography and the primal beauty of it was written in red blood.

-

Zenyatta adapted well to the missions, better than Genji had thought. He was not without remorse and doubt and he lagged behind the others who had trained as Overwatch agents, but he was catching up quickly. At first, it seemed strange to him, but Genji soon found that this new side was not actually a departure from the Zenyatta he knew, which made it almost more shocking to consider. It was as if he had suddenly seen the fangs of an animal he used to think not completely defenceless, but certainly docile. It was only on him that he had ignored the signs, though. The quiet focus of a monk obviously made Zenyatta a good man to stand in the backline and call the shots, his quick wit informed a capricious fighting style that was difficult to predict, and his ability to draw both the worst and best out of a person was weaponized into his energy orbs.

Once he married the two versions of Zenyatta in his head, he could finally give himself to the exhilaration that came from moving alongside him in a fight, the two of them now chasing together like a small pack, Genji in front and Zenyatta a few steps behind, yet never out of reach. The world Genji had drawn him into had not broken or bent Zenyatta and the guilt Genji had been plagued with finally dissipated.

One time, weeks after the return to Overwatch, they escaped together clutching stolen intel from a Talon base, shots ringing around them. Genji’s pulse raced and the flames still burned within him even when they were back at the Gibraltar base. There, he pulled Zenyatta down onto a creaking bedstead and for once did nothing to rein himself in and hide what he was, finally sure he would be wholly accepted.

-

The dragon that was intertwined with Genji’s soul had always been deeply fascinating to Zenyatta. Though he believed in all sorts of magic, he had never encountered someone who had been born with it bound to his blood. The dragon came to the fight with Genji and sometimes Zenyatta would see it as a green glow during meditation, or simply catch a flash of Genji’s eyes that looked like nothing human.

He wondered why he had not encountered it like this before, but perhaps it was only in abandon that it would fully break through. Genji’s affection on this evening after their first mission all alone without the others broke down over him like a wave and pulled at him as a wild torrent, tearing Zenyatta off his feet, expecting him to be able to keep his head above the water without help. Perhaps Genji hadn’t thought that Zenyatta could handle the full brutal force of his passion before, with sharp teeth showing and claws poking at his wiring. Zenyatta would not back down, though, unafraid as he grasped the man and pulled him closer. He’d learned from Genji and alongside him. In the heat of battle, they had forged themselves into a perfect match.


End file.
